Color My World Behind the Scenes #2

So, I know you're all excited for the next generation of Color My World. I thought this would be a good opportunity to let you know that the story will be returning in exactly one week from now, on October 6th. The reason for bringing it back on that Tuesday instead of Monday is that October 6th is actually the one year anniversary of CMW! I thought waiting that extra day and starting the tale back up on the same day it all began would be a great way to celebrate the occasion. Updates would still remain on Mondays following that.

In order to help tide you over for these seven days, I am releasing the second half of the Behind the Scenes content I have for the first generation. As always, this content contains randoms things I noticed or thought about the game while taking pictures, how certain shots are set up, and how difficult it can be to get these digital people to cooperate. Enjoy!

You have to wonder about these Sims and their anatomy/bodily strength sometimes. I feel as if I would break my neck trying to lift my head like that. 

This is the picture that began my fiddling around with Ethereal's appearance, which you will see more of below. This is obviously a mix of her green and white as I transformed her from Meadow back into her original appearance for the first time.

I took several random shots of Ethereal when she was white, as I hadn't really taken any good ones before. I missed seeing her in her true coloring after having her green for so long. This was about when I reached the conclusion that I would never be able to decide if I liked Ethereal or Meadow better in terms of appearance. While the only thing does change is the color of her skin, it truly does feel as if she's a totally different person in each version.

Ethereal wasn't the only one who went through a transformation that morning. Poor Button took on quite a different look as well.

Better watch out, Apricot. Pumpkin's gonna get ya!

Guys, if you non-Berries are going to hang around, at least be a nuisance properly. I can simply recolor you if you're on the rink, but starting up this nonsense is going to get you reset.

And here's when I began really testing out various versions of Ethereal. I wanted to see how she would look with normal colors, save for this one which features her white hair and eyes on an average pale complexion.

Black hair and blue eyes.

Ellothiel's golden hair and blue eyes.

Ellothiel's golden hair and Ellothiel's green eyes. This made her very much resembles Cethiel from TGO:

Their faces have quite dissimilar structures the more you study a flat expression on the both of them though. Cethiel's elven ears help to further differentiate them too.

Here we have red hair, brown eyes, and a light scattering of freckles. This was one of the versions I liked the most.

We'll end with darker skin, black hair, and gray eyes.

However, I had to put Ellothiel and Ethereal side by side to compare and contrast my two main characters. Ignoring their colorings, you'll find that pretty much the only thing that is close to identical is the shape of their eyes. Ellothiel has a wider head and a longer, more pointed jaw line and chin. Her lips are also wider as well and have more volume to them. Their noses appear relatively similar from the front, but Ethereal has a more rounded-in bridge while Ellothiel's is straighter. I won't even bother touching on the ears.

And the version with Ethereal with her proper lack of color. There would be no mixing up the two in this reality.

Derp expressions are the best. If you pay close attention, you'll actually discover that Sims blink unevenly quite often during animations.

Random expression I adored but had no use for in the story. How could you say no to those eyes and that pout?

Allium's actual reaction to his spare.

The inside of the "school". I was going to build more to it, but then I realized that was unnecessary. I simply altered the right room to fit what I needed at that moment. At first, it was a classroom before I knocked part of it down to make the girls' restroom. I left the computer lab alone for the most part though.

The first kiss! D'aww!

I'm quite sure that's not how it's supposed to look,

But you two are so cute I don't care.

The only proper way to destroy a sandcastle. Excellent form. Much perfection. Such pretty line.

I very nearly changed how Sap and Ethereal's romance worked out. Somehow, Sap losing his glasses really improved his standing with me. I was neutral about his character at first, but by the time I got to this point in the picture taking I had fallen a bit in love with the adorkable dork. I wanted to find some way to keep him and Ethereal together a bit longer, but I had gone too far down their path of separation to turn back.

Betcha none of you picked out any of these four at the homecoming dance, did ya? Although, I do believe I shared this picture with some, so perhaps those few will remember this tidbit of information. When making the students to fill out the homecoming dance, I merely took whatever Sims the game gave me in CAS and recolored them. That led to Elrunamir, Ellothiel, Eloril, and Elrundir in that order getting to make cameos in the new story. I know Ellothiel is the only one that's recognizable though, as Elrundir and Eloril's elven appearances had to go, and I had to change Elrunamir's hair as he normally sports the same style as Amaranth. He ended up being the DJ.

Even though I filled up the household with teens, the crowd for homecoming was pathetic indeed. I had to use some clever angles to hide how empty the space was. I was rather proud of the "basketball court" though, despite it not showing up that well in the official shots.

Um.

...

Huh.

Well, okay.

Eloril is so fudgin excited for this dance.

I couldn't help when I sent Eden and Ethereal to "Painted Plains" for the vacation but to place them in Ellothiel's old house, which I converted into their hotel room.

Eden, that's not how you pet a horse. That's also not how you are supposed to bend your arms.

I wanted to use this pose from Ethereal's angle, but, goodness gracious, look what it did to her poor face! The clipping was harder to hide from this perspective as well.

Excuse me. I am trying to take pictures here. Don't sit on my characters, please.

This is also the only picture that I have to show here of my failed attempt to show Allium's subtle appreciation of Meadow by incorporating green into his clothing. I was going to have this be a more common thing, but I was lazy. I also forgot about it. Whoops.

Glacier was more excited than the teens about the hot air balloon ride.

Another face comparison! This time- Purity vs. Ethereal. Their heads are about the same width this time around, but Purity has that much longer and narrower jaw. Her eyes also have a more pronounced slant, and this time around Ethereal's mouth is wider (slightly). Their noses are what's more or less identical.

For not getting along, Ethereal and Purity were highly in-sync.

That drink really messed with Ethereal's head. I imagine her to be an energetic, silly, kinda cute kind of drunk.

This was the weirdest thing that happened. Frost went for a swim when I wasn't looking, and when he got out he was suddenly super fat! It was easy enough to change him back, but I couldn't for the life of me figure out where the unexpected weight came from.

Watching Sims rage is so much fun. If only it were acceptable to be this animated in real life.

I've always had to ask myself who decided to animate the lips so that they were constantly so far away from where they were supposed to be. This expression was perfect for what I wanted to go for, save for Cocoa's lips jutting out like she was a fish with a hook in her mouth and someone was pulling on the line.

The game was clipping extremely badly during this play session for no apparent reason.

I moved the troupe out of the active household for this play session so they wouldn't be in my way, but I glanced through the window of the arcade to spot a certain someone. Look who decided to get in my way anyway. All five of them.

They seriously even piled together and just watched Blaze and Ethereal interact. C'mon guys, you can stand not to be in a few chapters for once.

A comparison of how much I lightened Meadow's green skin when the injection began to wear off, for in-game even this drastic difference was barely noticeable.

Purity's Diva/Snob animations are some of the most interesting.

This shot just amuses me for whatever reason.

Allium knows how to dodge snowballs with style.

HD, full-sized Christmas cuteness.

Part of a certain family decided to stalk Amaranth and Ethereal in this play session. The culprits, you ask?

Sunflower's mother, Storm, and her older sister, Windy. They also brought along Cloudy, Sunflower's younger brother. I hadn't bothered to age either Windy or Cloudy up since they were never going to make an appearance in the story. I had plans for them to, but I never found a reason to include them.

I originally sent Amaranth and Ethereal to the dog park in order to do some reminiscing, but I quickly realized that was going to be horribly boring. Storm, Windy, and Cloudy showing up also prompted me to move them to another location.

I brought them to the activity center instead. I spin the camera around, and guess who just happens to be there. I guess the Morning family was just desperate to get in the shot somehow. Windy in particular always shows up wherever I go.

Close, Amaranth, but not quite.

Now here's your HD, full-sized brotherly-sisterly cuteness. I want to take more of these when I have the chance.

I was super excited when I stumbled across this awesome pose pack that had a perfect progression of poses that fit right in with how I wanted Amaranth convincing Ethereal in the maze to go. The only problem- the poses stretched the male skeleton super tall. It's not so bad in this shot, but there would have been no way for me to hide how Amaranth had suddenly grown a foot or so in the others. I had to make do with other poses instead.

When I went to go give Amaranth his bruise makeup, I couldn't resist trying some of the other makeup on him. Looking good, buddy ;D

It's all about perspective, perspective, perspective. I didn't have a good pose for Amaranth after he had been slapped except for this one, but the pose had the Sim on the floor. So, I plopped him on a OMSP and angled the shot in order to make it look like he was standing as normal.

Allium and Ethereal got stuck on top of each other after I canceled their poses. I couldn't resist snapping a shot of how their faces blended together. It's actually a great way to see the differences in their facial structure.

And, for comparison, here's one of Amaranth and Ethereal. I think the overall result is actually a lot nicer in this one. Guess these two were just made for each other. And they technically were, so there you go.

Button's expression after she chased Allium out of the house. Girl knows she did good.

Someone is having some problems rendering.

Everyone and their mother wanted to join Amaranth and Ethereal on their date. Seriously, the whole town began to swarm around this restaurant. Purity was one of the worst offenders as she just refused to leave.

"Look at this. We're trying to have a serious conversation, and this guy, whose real name is Reuben Smiley, just thinks he can waltz into my shot and read a book. A book about a bunny, no less. Screw you, Smiley. Screw you."

Stupid lips!

Having Ethereal and Purity together like this was so nice. I took several extra pictures of them just to commemorate finally having them together as fellow albinos.

Button and her fluffy weirdness :D

Ethereal is meeting her mother for the first time, and Eden's just over there texting like nothing's out of the ordinary.

Field seriously did just stand there and trip over absolutely nothing.

Jungle had a penchant for doing bizarre idles as well.

My computer wanted to kill me, I'm sure, after stuffing this many Sims into the household for Rose and Jac's wedding. (I seriously only just realized as I typed that that I forgot about Rose and Jack from the Titanic. That wasn't intentional at all, lol.) The poor thing had no idea what it was in for when it was time for Amaranth and Ethereal's wedding the following play session.

There was no choice but for me to sit everyone down manually and use poses for both ceremonies, as this is what happened when I tried to use the marriage feature in the game.

Some people noticed Sap and Purity together during Amaranth and Ethereal's wedding, but no one's said anything about a certain someone else in the shots. That's why I'll just leave this here.

Now that Amaranth and Ethereal are adults and married, I can finally share with you one of my utmost favorite pictures of them that I took a million and one years ago. They're enjoying their honeymoon, and they're looking forward to seeing you next Tuesday!

Stay excited, friends.

Kelsey out!